TNH #30 Winner, Eversiction, Tells All

Tuesday Night Hype has already been around for 30 weeks! Can you believe it?

The goal of TNH has always been to offer the Hearthstone community a chance to demonstrate their skills; known players and unknown players alike. Whether it’s your first tournament experience, or you are a regular, like this weeks winner, Eversiction!

You’ve probably heard of him, and if you’ve been playing in TNH you might have also seen him. He has been competing in TNH since its inception.

Eversiction was kind enough to share his TNH experiences with us, as well as the lineup he used to win TNH #30.

eversiction

My TNH Experiences

I’ve been playing in TNHs for a very, very long time. I started playing either in TNH#1 or TNH#2 and basically all my runs went the same – got to top 16/32 and lost. This happened for a while and I think it’s partly due to my lack of actual preparation. For open tournaments I believe the right preparation is more of a mind set than actual practice. In many TNHs I had a bit of fun and tried some VERY questionable decks (like duplicate coldlight oracle felreaver mage). Sometimes I would use TNHs to test out decks. Both times I’ve won however were a result of me focusing very hard and making sure my lineup made sense to me.

On a personal basis I’ve made a lot of friends with people such as Beastmode who are all fantastic people. There were a few times where I’d be coming home from work and wouldn’t be able to make check-in and the people over at vS signed me up and put me in the bracket. All in all, I’ve had very good experiences with TNHs and vS as a whole and am looking forward to win some more TNHs.
 
Conquest Format
Conquest format is one everyone has opinions on whether it be professionals or casual tournament players. A lot of pros say one should play comfort decks, others say the strongest decks in any given meta, and others say a combination of both is best. As far as which deck to pick first most of the pros agree that it is random but many people have had success to trying to predict a certain pick and then countering said pick, which also requires deeper planning for the course over a series.
The Lineup
e_rogueOil Rogue
Rogue has always been one of my stronger decks and believe it is somewhat underrated as it is underplayed or not played to it’s full potential. There is a reason so many people such as Dog, Hyped, and Purpledrank insist on playing the deck even though most pros have stopped playing the deck. As of recent, people have discovered it has a favorable matchup against Patron Warrior which is argued to be the best deck in all of Hearthstone and in Conquest format. This isn’t the main reason for bringing though. Rogue, when played well, has a favorable chance to win games against every deck in Hearthstone. The ability to start off as a control deck and suddenly flip a switch and become an aggressive deck is extremely powerful against other aggressive deck. Against control decks it is basically a slower aggro deck but gains it’s advantage through constant pressure backed up by heavy cycle and large amounts of burst damage. In conquest I feel comfortable enough with this deck to be able to eek out a win against any lineup.
 
e_patronPatron Warrior
I mean come on, this deck is absurd. It has the ability to win any game with favorable odds just through its sheer power. Developing four patrons on turn five is a win condition that only requires three cards, and if one of those three cards happens to be Death’s bite, you get to clear a hunter’s board, or kill two very large minions against midrange decks. Combine this with the ability to do 60+ damage with the right setup through Frothing Berserkers, enough survivability to make these combos consistent, makes this deck just absurd. In conquest, this deck many times means you only have to win with two decks since this is almost always a guaranteed win against any lineup.
 

e_controlwarriorControl Warrior
I played Control Warrior in the early stages of the tournament because it’s a deck I’m extremely comfortable with. I’ve played this deck to top ten legend countless times and it’s still one of my favorites. This deck crushes random decks if played properly. Echo Giants Mage? Armor pass until fatigue hits and laugh as they desperately play Echo of Medivh and explosive sheep and Doomsayers. Priest? Same story except you have to kill a few more minions. Murloc Warlock? Hi my name is Death’s Bite and I clear your board, and even if I don’t I have two brawls to back me up. Simply put in the early stages of a tournament you face less experienced players who play high variance decks to sort of cheat their wins whether intentionally or unintentionally. Control Warrior is VERY strong at punishing those kinds of decks.
 
E_PriestEversiction Priest
First off, the only reason I named it after myself is because I had no idea what to call this. This runs Deathlords, Lightbombs, Circle of Healings, no Belchers, and Velen’s Chosen. I’ve seen people make similar lists and call it Hybrid Priest but it’s not entirely accurate. This decks generates early board advantage with it’s powerful early game minions and ensures those minions stay through the priest hero power, Circle of Healings, Light of the Naarus, Power Word: Shields, and Velen’s Chosens. This sort of deck is naturally able to play very aggressive due to the fact your minions are very hard to kill. How? If your minions won’t die anyways, why trade? Push damage and let your opponents cringe as they figure out ways to efficient deal with a 4/12 Deathlord on turn 4 or a 5/6 Shrinkmeister on turn 3. This type of style is what led me to the removal of things like Sludge Belchers and one Shadow Word: Death in favor of more tempo oriented cards such as Loatheb and Vol’jin. If you ever play one of these five drops on curve they’re almost always better than playing Belchers on curve. I’d also like to note that in conquest format, priest is always extremely underrated. Since it has favorable matchups against all forms of hunter, midrange druid, and just about every other aggressive deck it has favorable matchups in just about any conquest lineup, especially in open tournaments where there is more aggression. 
 
The Strategy
My original plan was to use Oil Rogue, Priest, and Control Warrior as they were all three very comfortable picks for me, but most importantly I wanted to pick three decks that weren’t very common in the meta. My strategy was to make my opponents as uncomfortable as possible. Many people can achieve reasonable success having no idea how to adapt to different situations. For example, if you’re playing against a demon zoo and you’re playing oil rogue.In your hand you have a Blade Flurry, a Backstab, a Preparation, a Sap, and a Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil. Your opponent has a 2/4 Imp Gang Boss against your SI:7 Agent and a 1/2 dagger.. Many players would just play the oil and kill the Imp Gang Boss, possibly even Backstab the 1/1 to play around Abusive. But what more experienced players will see is that their hand doesn’t have many minions, so they’re not going to be able to fight for board control well. The play is most likely something along the lines of Preparation -> Tinker’s Sharpsword Oil -> Hit face with everything and even Sap the Imp Gang Boss. Your common game plan against demon zoo is to win board control early and to finish the game off with some damage. Now it’s to race the demon zoo player since your hand has very little room to take the standard game plan.
My plan for the conquest format was to put my opponents into as many unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations as possible while still allowing myself to to play comfortably. Since my deck choices were not only comfort picks but also decks that are very uncommon on the ladder, I felt I’d have a reasonable chance this time around. So far I’ve done pretty well with this strategy most recently winning TNH#30.
Thanks for sharing Eversiction! You can find Eversiction on Twitter @Eversiction and on Twitch.tv/Eversiction. Hopefully, reading about his lineup and strategy may help you in improving your own success in the next TNH! Head over to the TNH page and sign up for one now!